In 1950s West Texas, best friends Tim and Hect, two mischief-makers in their middle teens, are enjoying the high life. Coddled in the type of lifestyles that allows them to play war with.22 caliber semiautomatic rifles, they suddenly find their world turned upside down when their game turns into a ghastly murder, or so they believe. The way this unintended calamity comes about is described below. For a final lark of a prank-filled day, Hect has the idea to set ablaze an old shack that once served as offices in an abandoned auto junkyard. Tim readily agrees, although he thinks his friend's target is a wasp nest in a mesquite bush. They fill a bottle with fuel from a wrecked truck and hurl the Molotov cocktail at the shanty, which erupts in a fireball. Stunned that his friend chose to set fire to the empty office instead of the wasp nest, Tim gapes in horror as a blazing figure appears in the hut's window. The human torch and a stunned Tim gaze at one another, searing the memory into the boy's mind. Interrupted by the sound of sirens coming from town, and believing their stunt will land them in prison, if not on Huntsville's Death Row, Tim and Hect think their only choice lies in becoming fugitives from the law. Armed only with dogged determination and a forehead-slapping sense of naivety, the two boys flee out into the harsh Texas desert. Because of the spoiled lifestyles the two have lived so far, they couldn't be less prepared to face hunger, thirst, life on the road, homelessness and a hidden world of poverty and slums, plus the mean streets of Juarez, Mexico. As the two friends stumble across the desert, through border towns, and into a country where they can't speak the language and don't know the customs, they will have to navigate con artists, wise guys, slum lords, and ex-convicts if they ever hope to survive the Wild West.
